About Atrium

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The Botanical Research Institute of Texas began development of Atrium® in 2005 to manage the large volume of data generated through the research activity of the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program with funding primarily from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. As the project progressed, new features were added and Atrium grew into the mature, feature-rich system it is today. See the AABP Atrium...

The Atrium Vision

Atrium is a technology platform for revolutionizing biodiversity information management by enabling researchers and organizations to share, synthesize, manage and publish biodiversity data in a collaborative, online environment. Atrium provides a broad range of tools for research organizations as well as an unparalleled, open-source framework based on industry standards which facilitates the development of powerful applications and tools for the biodiversity community.

Features

  • Virtual Herbarium - The Virtual Herbarium portion of Atrium provides many tools for entry, organization and analysis of collection data. Collaborators can view complete collection data and high resolution images, print labels, and annotate collections remotely.
  • Geospatial Data Repository - Atrium allows researchers to store, search, and download GIS data in both raster and vector formats.
  • Bibliographic References - Atrium provides a searchable repository for bibliographic references and documents.
  • Weather Data - Atrium hosts weather station data from multiple sites and allows multiple sensor datasets to be graphed and downloaded.
  • Field Database - The Atrium Field Database provides a way for researchers to view and manage biodiversity data and images while in the field and disconnected from the internet. Changes in the Field Database and the Atrium server are syncronized when internet connectivity is re-established.
  • Global Sharing - Data in Atrium can be accessed through GBIF, a multi-national organization that aggregrates biodiversity data from over 200 worldwide data providers.

Technology

The Atrium infrastructure follows the industry-standard LAMP model (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) that provides a time-tested operating environment supported by a vast array of supplementary tools and extensions. Many web applications are also based on the LAMP model, which facilitates integration with Atrium. All core components of Atrium infrastructure are open-source, which provide a stable, peer-reviewed, industry-standard foundation for our application.